Not forgetful, just a writer.

I put a dozen eggs in a pot brimming with water and set them on high to boil while I went to write. I figured I’d check on them when I got up to get my tea which was steeping in a nearby mug.

Then I wandered off and set about writing a post for my blog, tweaking a few paragraphs on the chapter I was working on for my book, paid some bills online and then returned to my chapter yet again to hash out an action sequence of aerial combat with samurai swords.

Later, as I just so happened to be walking past the kitchen, I thought, “What is that awful smell?”

I glanced over and noted a dozen eggs stewing in less than a quarter inch of water at a rolling boil.

OHDEARGOD!

Racing to the stove I flipped off the burner and pulled the pan to the back of the range as the wafting scent of metallic sulfur and super-nova heated eggs filled the kitchen.

I’d boiled 2 quarts of water down to a quarter inch. And my tea was long cold and past drinkable.

I was irritated about it for the rest of the night, thinking, God! What if it hadn’t been eggs? What if I’d set the kitchen on fire while I was happily submerged in my chapter? Sure, when the eggs finally ignited they would have set off the alarm, but what if I’d left something in the broiler? What if it had been oil?

This goes way beyond the irritation I feel for myself every time I fall asleep at my computer desk as I’ve been writing and then wake up almost late for work and in the car I realize I left a load of gnarly underwear in the community laundry room of my apartment complex – because I was so engrossed in my chapter that I forgot to go get my laundry.

And I’ve tried setting timers. Setting the alarm on my phone and inevitably, it goes off and I switch it off because I can’t remember why I set it, OR I think, okay, gotta go get the laundry – after this paragraph – and the next day my holey load of period panties are in a pile on the community washroom folding table, because one paragraph became three pages.

Worse, as I was writing, the other night I remember thinking, “God! The neighbor is really loud tonight, what’s with all the clicking and tinking?”

Not the neighbor, Athena – your fucking eggs were boiling to utter powder.

This is how I manage to kill rosemary plants – the virtually un-killable herb dies repeatedly in my care. This is how I fall off the grid and my friends think I’ve moved back to Alaska, I forget to return phone calls. This is how my bills often forget to get paid, why laundry is often wrinkly, dishes in the sink start to reek, and why the kitchen trash could get up and walk out to the dumpster by itself – I swear to god it’s not intentional, I just get so caught up I forget to eat and I forget I even have to pee.

I just get lost in my work and fall asleep at my desk.

So I decided today, as I was cracking open one of these nearly rubber eggs… it’s a pretty good indication that even if I wanted to start a relationship, it would have to be with someone who remembers to rotate the laundry, or start the dishwasher, or who might remind me that my tea has been steeping for the last four hours.

Or someone who doesn’t mind rubber eggs in their lunch from time to time.